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The L.A. Times Looks at Fred Karger’s Presidential Campaign, and His Closeted Past

August 10, 2011 by Andy Towle

The L.A. Times is running a profile on gay GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger who is still being excluded from the FOX News debate this Thursday, even though he has met all the qualifications.

Filing_karger The LAT profile looks at why Karger is spending his money on a campaign in which he realizes there is no chance he will be the GOP nominee…

By running for president and trying to get on stage for at least one debate — the overriding goal of his candidacy — Karger hopes to send a message to people like himself: a boy growing up outside Chicago and, later, a closeted adult, shamed by society's view of his sexuality and too scared to admit, even to himself, who he was…

…It turns out he was a lot like his Uncle Buddy, to whom he bore a striking resemblance. When he was 19, Karger visited a gay bar for the first time and in walked Buddy. Karger fled before he was spotted. Two years later, his uncle killed himself, blaming his male lover in a suicide note. He was 42.

The story has become a part of Karger's campaign, shared with audiences. At a San Francisco fundraiser this summer, he looked on impassively as a group of 25 gay men watched his video image, projected on the wall of a small loft, matter-of-factly discussing the tragedy. His calmness belies the trauma at the time. Karger wondered whether he'd see 42; his parents' shame and horror at Buddy's death drove him even deeper into the closet.

Gay Presidential Candidate Fred Karger Has a Message [la times]

Filed Under: Fred Karger, News, Republican Party Tagged With: 2012 election, Fred Karger, News, Republican Party

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